Despicable Me 4 | Review

★★★

Despicable Me peaked with Silas Ramsbottom. Not the Steve Coogan voiced character, per se, but the sequence of his jowly introduction. Was it Kevin, or perhaps Bob, who looked furtively to his neighbouring minion and sniggered ‘bottom’, before bursting into unbridled laughter? Either way, a gag of all time greatness was born. Nothing else in the, now fourteen-year-old, franchise has ever matched such infantile brilliance, certainly not in such a way as to justify the astounding commercial success the series has achieved. $4.6bn and counting. Film four does little to break the mould, instead opting for gentle expansion. It’s bright, breezy and a little exhausting.

The Ramsbottom gag gains a brief reprise early in Despicable Me 4. It’s when the man himself, in a pleasing example of built-world continuity, comes a knocking to whisk Gru (Steve Carell) and the nuclears off to a safe house in willowy suburbia. An old archenemies has broken free of his, supposedly high security, prison and, for the most brilliantly pathetic of reasons, has the destruction of Gru at the top of his to do list. It’s right up there with shoring up his army of diddy, identikit cockroaches and using a device of his own invention to transform himself into a human cockroach. He is, quite transparently, a bit of a letch. You’ll pick up on even before you hear the outlandish faux French accent he’s gifted by Will Ferrell. Anything goes in a world where no one questions Gru’s own mangled pronunciations.

More so than before, echoes of Pixar’s The Incredibles – and its own sequel – reverberate here. What with the power-trip villains, retro future aesthetic and familial dynamic, there’s always been a degree of crossover, but it’s never felt so blatant. Gru, and wife Lucy (Kristen Wiig), now have a baby of their own, a cutesy brothers for seemingly ageless sisters Margot (Miranda Cosgrove), Edith (Dana Gaier) and Agnes (Madison Polan). Known mainly as ‘the baby’, Gru Jr.’s the spit of both Jack Jack Incredible and Gru himself, with whom he shares a tepid relationship. Familiar that it may be, it’s the father-son journey here that raises the bar of the wider film. It’s almost touching.

There’s potential too in the film’s witness protection shtick, leaning into the very same play pen enjoyed by WandaVision over on Disney+. This too would have worked well in series format. Of course, Gru and family bring a trio of Minions along for the ride, one of whom spends the entire film trapped in a vending machine, but theirs remains an endearing family set up. Assigned new identities, Gru becomes solar panel salesman, Chet Cunningham, with Lucy renamed Blanche and deployed as a hairstylist. A nice ‘keeping up with the Joneses’ frisson plays out with the neighbours, while the need to not stand out proffers obvious tension. It’s enough to power the film on its own.

A pity, then, that so much more is thrown into the film’s brimming melting pot. Much as Gru and Lucy’s suburban failures are delightful, they’re crowded out by subplots and reams of new characters. What with flying cars, a badger heist, school bullies, the girl next door, tennis shenanigans, a school for villainous kids, a maniacal headteacher and five genetically enhanced ‘Mega Minions’ causing mayhem back in the city…it’s all just a little much.

That’s not to say Despicable Me 4 isn’t funny. Quite the opposite. A script by Ken Daurio and School of Rock’s Mike Wright succinctly nails a solid rhythm of gags, while Chris Renaud lets loose, both with his freewheeling direction and continued delivery of the very unique Minion vocabulary. Much of the film feels like shorts pinned together and interlaced with Minion sight gags. It’s not a recipe for coherency but, like any successful sketch format, it milks the pace.

Another Minions film set for June 2027 and it’s hard to believe this is the end for the flagship series. Despicable Me may not aspire to all time greatness – bottom gags notwithstanding – but there is something quite remarkable about the consistency of its efforts. Shrek flunked from 3, Madagascar waned at 4 and who knows if Ice Age is still an ongoing project for Blue Sky? Despicable Me trundles on, winning laughs and dollars, never throwing the ball so high as to risk dropping it. Film four is no better nor worse than the first and neither does it feel any more tired for the longevity. Now that’s bananas.

T.S.